Join Freedom Charitiy’s Red Triangle campaign to end FGM. Ending Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a United Nations global priority and in response to this Freedom Charity is going to be launching it Red Triangle campaign to help stop FGM.

Our vision is for everyone to wear a red triangle on national FGM day on February 6. The red downward pointing triangle is symbolic of the female form and its red because of this is the colour that symbolises a warning. FGM is also known as female cutting, or female circumcision. There is no medical justification for carrying out FGM, which is nothing short of a brutal and barbaric practise that is carried out on millions of women and girls.

Across the county there are thousands of amazing Knit and Natter groups where many women have already been making hats and blankets for premature babies. This army of women can also make a difference when it comes to raising FGM awareness.

If every Knit and Natter group made a red triangle for the nation to wear – from International FGM Day on February 6 until International Women’s day on March 8 – we could start the movement. But to do this, we need to set up a distribution network and ideally get large supermarkets and department stores to stock the red triangles for sale across the country.

But first we need the red triangles to be made, which means calling out to our nationwide teams of crafters, knitters and natterers. We would like to help spread the word by asking an FGM survivor to come in and talk to the Knit and Natter groups about how FGM has affected their lives. If everyone was to wear a red triangle, the funds raised would go towards a national prevention scheme.

Every school would be donated copies of the children’s book Cut Flowers written by Aneeta Prem and is designed to help raise FGM awareness, along with accredited PSHE association lesson plans on how to stop FGM. Also teachers would be given training and support on how to identify and end FGM.

Data collected by the Health and Social Care Information Centre shows there were more than 5,700 children who had suffered FGM in the UK in the year to March 2016. The real degree of this cruel practise is thought to be much more, with the UK government estimating that in total 170,000 women and girls living in the UK have suffered FGM. Worldwide the numbers of FGM victims could be as many as high as two hundred million.

This is truly shocking but I believe the red triangle campaign will help eradicate FGM in a generation.